In a game in which both offenses were playing “the floor is lava” with home plate with runners in scoring position–the Washington Nationals and Kansas City Royals combined to go one for 14 in those scenarios–they sure scored a lot of runs. Nearly all of them came from a collection of two-run homers, and the Royals just managed to do more damage than the Nationals in an absolutely crucial 7-4 win.
The game started rather ignominiously, with new Royals starter Bailey Falter heavily tempting fate. All nine balls in play hit off Falter in the first three innings were classified as hard hit, and with multiple walks sprinkled in between, it should have been a disaster. Josh Bell hit one of the many two-run home runs after James Wood walked to kick off the game, immediately giving the Nationals a two-run lead before the Royals came to the plate.
Fortunately, the second inning was a rather good one for Kansas City. With one out, Daylen Lile doubled and Luis Garcia Jr. hit a grounder to deep shortstop that would have put runners on the corners. But Bobby Witt Jr. displayed why he’s the most dynamic player in baseball with a beautiful play that functionally ended the inning:
In the bottom half of the inning, the Royals scored a pair of their own runs to tie the game; three consecutive singles by Maikel Garcia, Salvador Perez, and Adam Frazier resulted in one run, and a Randal Grichuk walk and a Nick Loftin sacrifice fly scored another. But with two on and one out, Nationals starter Cade Cavalli got Kyle Isbel to pop out and struck out Mike Yastrzemski to end the inning.
The Nationals took the lead in the fifth inning against Daniel Lynch IV, coming into the game in relief for Falter. Wood singled and Paul DeJong whacked an opposite-field home run to put the game at 4-2, Washington.
Kansas City took the lead back for good in the bottom of the sixth inning. Garcia walked, bringing Salvy up to the plate. Perez responded by smashing his 294th career home run.
The Royals weren’t done, though. Nationals reliever Jackson Rutledge and immediately coaxed a double play ball from Grichuk. But Loftin singled, bringing up Isbel to the plate. Isbel, who has been on fire recently, hit yet another two-run home run.
From there, the game cruised to a relatively clean close. Kansas City added on another run in the eighth inning from a Frazier single; Tyler Tolbert pinch ran for him and eventually came home on a Yastrzemski sacrifice fly. And though the Nationals had threatened in the top of that same frame, Loftin capped off his day with a very nice dive to prevent a hit with a man on base. Carlos Estevez closed the game, notching another save for the belt.
Look: technically speaking, the 119th game of the year is not in any way a “must-win” game. But realistically, tonight functioned as such. You cannot lose three out of four games to a team that had given up on the season recently (the Twins) and a team that had given up on the season a long time ago (the Nationals) when clinging to the fringes of a playoff race. When the Royals were down two, it felt a little bleak.
But this team does not suck, as some in the game thread were saying. We have seen Royals teams that suck, and they look a lot like the Nationals do right now. This team does not suck. Whether they end the season as a mediocre-ish team or ascend to the playoffs is up to them right now. Games like tonight will go a long way towards the latter happening.
